Naaman
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with a treasure more precious than the wealth of all the ages, a treasure
as enduring as eternity.
We know not in what line our children may be called to serve.
They may spend their lives within the circle of the home; they may
engage in life’s common vocations, or go as teachers of the gospel
to heathen lands; but all are alike called to be missionaries for God,
ministers of mercy to the world. They are to obtain an education that
will help them to stand by the side of Christ in unselfish service.
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The parents of that Hebrew maid, as they taught her of God, did
not know the destiny that would be hers. But they were faithful to their
trust; and in the home of the captain of the Syrian host, their child bore
witness to the God whom she had learned to honor.
Naaman heard of the words that the maid had spoken to her mis-
tress; and, obtaining permission from the king, he went forth to seek
healing, taking with him “ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces
of gold, and ten changes of raiment.” He also carried a letter from the
king of Syria to the king of Israel, in which was written the message,
“Behold, I have ... sent Naaman my servant to thee, that thou mayest
recover him of his leprosy.” When the king of Israel read the letter, “he
rent his clothes, and said, Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this
man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? wherefore
consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me.”
Tidings of the matter reached Elisha, and he sent word to the king,
saying, “Wherefore has thou rent thy clothes? let him come now to
me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.”
“So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood
at the door of the house of Elisha.” Through a messenger the prophet
bade him, “Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall
come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.”
Naaman had expected to see some wonderful manifestation of
power from heaven. “I thought,” he said, “he will surely come out to
me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his
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hand over the place, and recover the leper.” When told to wash in the
Jordan, his pride was touched, and in mortification and disappointment
he exclaimed, “Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better
than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean?”
“So he turned and went away in a rage.”